In my travels around industry events I regularly bump into WSJ reporters and it is true, they don't want Mr Murdoch as owner, short stories or long. But IMHO, Mr Murdoch would be able to leverage the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones as a whole into a formidable global publisher.

The reason is synergy. James Miller over at Collision Media blog says it well:

How often does an small town Australian newspaperman take over the most important business journal and website in the world? More importantly, Rupert Murdoch has a vast amount of ways to leverage the content from the Wall Street Journal - the TV, Satellite, Movies, Print newspapers and the Internet. This is truly "global media". I am not a big fan of Fox but this guys have vision and I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of that collision. I wish them luck as this move should make everyone stand up and take notice.

Many people get distracted by his political views and fail to recognize that Mr Murdoch, at 76 years old, is by far the savviest media mogul in the world.

He has an intuitive understanding of media that guides his investments and turn them into gold. His acquisition of MySpace for a bargain $580m is a good example.

If he succeeds in acquiring Dow Jones it could be bad news for the Financial Times.

If he doesn't succeed with Dow Jones he might resume his interest in acquiring the Financial Times, which could be had for a lot less money, and which could be scaled into a formidable competitor to the Wall Street Journal in the US and in global markets.